PHILADELPHIA – Youth is a quirky thing. It’s beneficial in that lopsided leads in the other team’s favor don’t seem to merit more than a blink of an eye. But in a hot minute, that inexperience sends a team to the airport with the taste of defeat in a game that seemed to be in its hands.

“It was a winnable game,” said the 76ers’ Royal Ivey. “This was a tough loss because we were up and we lost it like that.”

The Sixers fumbled the ball, clanged a few shots and – before they knew it – San Antonio had stalked out of Wells Fargo Center with a 90-85 victory Monday night.

Trailing until the fourth quarter, the Sixers took the lead and ballooned it to as many as seven points. Then they ran out of gas, and showed their youthfulness.

Advertisement

They missed shots, five of them. They committed turnovers, three of them.

“We had the game in our hands,” said Jrue Holiday, “but when it came down to it, they’re a veteran team that did what it needed to do to win.”

The Sixers headed to Milwaukee after this one, with a date tonight against the Bucks, one of the teams at which they’re staring up in the standings.

The Spurs (33-11) saved their best for last, pulling veterans Tim Duncan (24 points, 17 rebounds) and Tony Parker (20 points, eight assists) off their bench in crunch time. Duncan had six points and five boards in the fourth, including the bucket that game San Antonio the lead for good, and Parker had five points and two assists in the final period.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich bided his time and waited on bringing in his big guns late. Call it a luxury that the Sixers don’t have.

“When you see those guys coming, you’re like, ‘Oh, man,’” said the Sixers’ Thad Young.,

The Sixers (17-24) hit the midpoint of their season on yet another sour note. They were going for their second straight win, and nearly had it. That would’ve represented their first winning streak since Nov. 30, when they won three straight.

So much for that.

It felt like fool’s gold in the fourth quarter, when the Sixers erased what was once a 14-point deficit to take their first lead of the game. It helped that the Sixers made eight of their first 10 looks from the floor in the fourth. What hurt? They finished by missing nine of their last 10.

“We didn’t make shots,” said Young, who had 14 points and six boards.

Well, they didn’t prevent the Spurs from making theirs, either. The Spurs’ spurt coincided with a sloppy stretch from the Sixers that featured an 0-for-5 display from the floor and three turnovers, including one inbound pass that Nick Young dribbled off his shoelaces and out of play.

All told, the Spurs went on a 9-0 run to wipe out the Sixers’ advantage. A free throw from the Sixers’ Jrue Holiday broke up the San Antonio run, before Parker took an off-balance jumper that ended with Parker on the floor and the ball at the bottom of the bucket.

“We didn’t get the stops we needed,” Ivey said.

Like wins, consistency has eluded the Sixers (17-24) – to the tune of 22 games without consecutive wins.

Sixers coach Doug Collins devoted a few minutes at Sunday’s practice to discussing the essentials: following up a win with another win, and being the one pushing around a team, as opposed to being pushed. And there was nothing of the sort from the Sixers in their first half against San Antonio.

The spark required to beat a division-leading team like the Spurs was never present for the Sixers, who opened the game by missing all but seven of their first 25 shots. It took a crafty left-handed scoop shot from Holiday (15 points, eight assists) to keep the game from getting somewhat out of hand, at 18-15, with two minutes to go in the first. Then the Spurs made their next three shots, opened up a one-possession game and never looked back.

Buried in the aftermath of another loss was the revived play of Evan Turner, who totaled 18 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.

It was Turner who found his flow and knocked down the midrange floater that tied the game at 73-all in the fourth quarter. After Spencer Hawes hit a shot to give the Sixers their first lead, 75-73, with 9:21 to go, Turner was at it again. He set up Thad Young with a well-delivered bounce pass at the foul line. There, Young drilled the look to pad that lead.

It didn’t last, though.

“The effort was there. The focus was there. The concentration was there,” Young said. “Everyone’s playing on the same page and at a high level. It’s just about finishing games.”